The Last Great Wild Places Tour 3: A tale of two cities
Behind the counter at Kokush deli, Mikhael, who has a heavy Noo Yawk accent, says something to a colleague in Hebrew, then tells a busboy in Spanish to get some glasses. It feels like Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, but it's actually the Once district of Buenos Aires, the center of Jewish life in this city in which one in fifteen occupants is Jewish. It's pretty obvious when you arrive in the Once. Almost every man you see wears a yarmulke, and the stores have signs that advertise phone calls to Israel. Mikhael laughed when Matt said it was just like Brooklyn and gave us an advertising magnet with his phone number. It now adorns our refrigerator.
So how is it that this city, so tolerant of its lively Jewish community, also tolerated Adolf Eichmann?
Even before we got here, it was obvious that Buenos Aires has some of the most pleasant, friendly and helpful people around. Everyone raves about service at the hotels, and with good reason. The service is wonderful: personal without being intrusive. If someone can help you, they do. So how is it that the people of this city, so delightful and charming, so tolerant of the obviously touristy (that would be us) also tolerated a repressive and murderous regime that brought the Nazis to mind, and then tolerated the cover-up by the succeeding Menem government? The Menem government was democratically elected, responsive to the will of the people, and completely uninterested in justice. Argentines seemed to want to put the Dirty War of 1976-1983, with its disappearances and murders, behind them. From whence comes this paradoxical national character that embraces courtesy and thoughtfulness, and brushes off mass murder as inconsequential?
After having spent some more time in Argentina, I can only say that I don't know the answer to that question, other than the sense I get that Argentines really don't care about anything much.
Argentina was an odd experience for me. I've travelled a lot in the developing world, and I generally love it. Argentina is much more developed than, say, Algeria or China is, but it lacks the distinctive character that those countries have. Even though I found the people to be among the most warm and helpful I have ever experienced in my travels, it's too apathetic for my tastes.
That apathy is expressed in all kinds of ways. Among other things, you almost never see excellence, and it isn't because of poverty. It's because of indifference. The food is boring and unflavored, like an unhealthy version of the plain food I make at home. Every decent restaurant we ate at was a barbecue place at which grilled slabs of meat and lettuce salads were the main offering. Nearly all desserts are based on dulce de leche, the most sugary and uninteresting of flavors, which, at least, made it easy to avoid sweets. Breakfast equals medialunas, a greasy and dense version of a croissant. Medialunas are proof that simply using butter does not equal good baking, and apparently it's not possible to send a few bakers to France - or just to foodtv.com - to learn how to bake better.
Sloppy workmanship is everywhere. Poorly half-built structures litter overgrown, weedy lots in the small towns, and no one seems to be working on them. In every city the sidewalks were so badly constructed that they're falling apart. In the wealthy Palermo neighborhood there's a lovely walk along the street beside the Botanical Gardens, where Portenos (the people of Buenos Aires) walk their dogs. We had to go across the street to the other side because it was such a minefield of abandoned dog poop. The park itself was a mess, weedy and overgrown. One bed, a display of the mate herb so beloved of South Americans, had recently been replanted. The bed hadn't been well prepared, as the weeds show, and the plantings were sparse and had apparently just been stuck in the ground any which way.
Lots of the well-to-do inhabitants of Palermo strolled the park, but apparently it wasn't possible for these wealthy people, who command so much of Argentina's resources, to form a committee to maintain their capital city's botanical gardens. And this is one of the best neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.
You also see this apathy in stores, in design, and in the arts and sciences. We visited the art museum, which charged a hefty admission fee. It was unimpressive. The National Museum of Sciences, in the nearby University town of La Plata, was filled with uncurated materials. Display cases contained cardboard boxes of dinosaur bones, just shoved in. The front of the display case would then be covered with a bright, semi-educational banner talking about dinosaurs. Do they not have money to do the studies and curation? Let me introduce La Plata to the concept of "graduate students," the ultimate cheap, skilled and knowledgable labor. Almost all the exhibits in the museum had a very 19th century feel, and based on the scant interpretation available, that's when they were collected. So Argentines could do science in the 1800s, but it's no longer possible?
I do understand that not everything is possible in a country like Argentina, which has economic problems. The difficulty I have with Argentina is that it seems that nothing is possible. They can't seem to do anything about anything. Egypt is far poorer than Argentina, and its people have a far worse quality of life on average, but they have some of the world's best cared for archeological sites and museums. Egyptians decided that they had this one remarkable thing, and they were going to hang on to it and do their best with it. What does Argentina have that is the equivalent?
The picture below is of the Recoleta Cemetery, the top tourist attraction in Buenos Aires. Consider that, and then consider that even Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
This waste and sloppiness in Argentine workmanship is evident in the Recoleta. Despite its value as a tourist attraction, much of the Recoleta is weedy and dirty. Many of the mausoleums are falling apart, even though they aren't very old. As this fascinating (ok, fascinating to me) photo shows, expensive materials, like this marble facing, were used in slipshod workmanship. The marble facings were secured at the top and bottom, where they are still attached, but the mason didn't bother to secure them on the sides. Facings generally cover brick or stone, but this column was filled with packed dirt and rubble. The rubble pressed outward on the slab causing this beautiful example of plastic deformation.
Burials in the Recoleta appear to be on a decline: I saw almost none dating to the 21st century. Perhaps that is a sign that Argentina is changing. In 2006 its late president, Nestor Kirchner, reopened the trials of participants in the Dirty War. The newspaper here has daily reports of long prison sentences handed down to them, and a few days ago, the U.S.extradited a major war criminal of that era to Argentina at the request of the Argentine government. I was pleased to see that Jorge Vidala,the architect of the Dirty War, subsequent to the overturn of the amnesty granted him by former president Carlos Menem, was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Good for Argentina. It has a lot of potential. Let's hope it does something with it.
So how is it that this city, so tolerant of its lively Jewish community, also tolerated Adolf Eichmann?
Even before we got here, it was obvious that Buenos Aires has some of the most pleasant, friendly and helpful people around. Everyone raves about service at the hotels, and with good reason. The service is wonderful: personal without being intrusive. If someone can help you, they do. So how is it that the people of this city, so delightful and charming, so tolerant of the obviously touristy (that would be us) also tolerated a repressive and murderous regime that brought the Nazis to mind, and then tolerated the cover-up by the succeeding Menem government? The Menem government was democratically elected, responsive to the will of the people, and completely uninterested in justice. Argentines seemed to want to put the Dirty War of 1976-1983, with its disappearances and murders, behind them. From whence comes this paradoxical national character that embraces courtesy and thoughtfulness, and brushes off mass murder as inconsequential?
After having spent some more time in Argentina, I can only say that I don't know the answer to that question, other than the sense I get that Argentines really don't care about anything much.
Argentina was an odd experience for me. I've travelled a lot in the developing world, and I generally love it. Argentina is much more developed than, say, Algeria or China is, but it lacks the distinctive character that those countries have. Even though I found the people to be among the most warm and helpful I have ever experienced in my travels, it's too apathetic for my tastes.
That apathy is expressed in all kinds of ways. Among other things, you almost never see excellence, and it isn't because of poverty. It's because of indifference. The food is boring and unflavored, like an unhealthy version of the plain food I make at home. Every decent restaurant we ate at was a barbecue place at which grilled slabs of meat and lettuce salads were the main offering. Nearly all desserts are based on dulce de leche, the most sugary and uninteresting of flavors, which, at least, made it easy to avoid sweets. Breakfast equals medialunas, a greasy and dense version of a croissant. Medialunas are proof that simply using butter does not equal good baking, and apparently it's not possible to send a few bakers to France - or just to foodtv.com - to learn how to bake better.
Sloppy workmanship is everywhere. Poorly half-built structures litter overgrown, weedy lots in the small towns, and no one seems to be working on them. In every city the sidewalks were so badly constructed that they're falling apart. In the wealthy Palermo neighborhood there's a lovely walk along the street beside the Botanical Gardens, where Portenos (the people of Buenos Aires) walk their dogs. We had to go across the street to the other side because it was such a minefield of abandoned dog poop. The park itself was a mess, weedy and overgrown. One bed, a display of the mate herb so beloved of South Americans, had recently been replanted. The bed hadn't been well prepared, as the weeds show, and the plantings were sparse and had apparently just been stuck in the ground any which way.
Lots of the well-to-do inhabitants of Palermo strolled the park, but apparently it wasn't possible for these wealthy people, who command so much of Argentina's resources, to form a committee to maintain their capital city's botanical gardens. And this is one of the best neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.
You also see this apathy in stores, in design, and in the arts and sciences. We visited the art museum, which charged a hefty admission fee. It was unimpressive. The National Museum of Sciences, in the nearby University town of La Plata, was filled with uncurated materials. Display cases contained cardboard boxes of dinosaur bones, just shoved in. The front of the display case would then be covered with a bright, semi-educational banner talking about dinosaurs. Do they not have money to do the studies and curation? Let me introduce La Plata to the concept of "graduate students," the ultimate cheap, skilled and knowledgable labor. Almost all the exhibits in the museum had a very 19th century feel, and based on the scant interpretation available, that's when they were collected. So Argentines could do science in the 1800s, but it's no longer possible?
I do understand that not everything is possible in a country like Argentina, which has economic problems. The difficulty I have with Argentina is that it seems that nothing is possible. They can't seem to do anything about anything. Egypt is far poorer than Argentina, and its people have a far worse quality of life on average, but they have some of the world's best cared for archeological sites and museums. Egyptians decided that they had this one remarkable thing, and they were going to hang on to it and do their best with it. What does Argentina have that is the equivalent?
The picture below is of the Recoleta Cemetery, the top tourist attraction in Buenos Aires. Consider that, and then consider that even Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
This waste and sloppiness in Argentine workmanship is evident in the Recoleta. Despite its value as a tourist attraction, much of the Recoleta is weedy and dirty. Many of the mausoleums are falling apart, even though they aren't very old. As this fascinating (ok, fascinating to me) photo shows, expensive materials, like this marble facing, were used in slipshod workmanship. The marble facings were secured at the top and bottom, where they are still attached, but the mason didn't bother to secure them on the sides. Facings generally cover brick or stone, but this column was filled with packed dirt and rubble. The rubble pressed outward on the slab causing this beautiful example of plastic deformation.
Burials in the Recoleta appear to be on a decline: I saw almost none dating to the 21st century. Perhaps that is a sign that Argentina is changing. In 2006 its late president, Nestor Kirchner, reopened the trials of participants in the Dirty War. The newspaper here has daily reports of long prison sentences handed down to them, and a few days ago, the U.S.extradited a major war criminal of that era to Argentina at the request of the Argentine government. I was pleased to see that Jorge Vidala,the architect of the Dirty War, subsequent to the overturn of the amnesty granted him by former president Carlos Menem, was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Good for Argentina. It has a lot of potential. Let's hope it does something with it.